Watching the World Go

1. Cruise Ships: the bigger the ship, the more it stands out in the small Sarandë harbor. Some require tender boats to transfer passengers; others pull right up to the international docks.

2. Tourist boats: many filled at or over capacity. We watch as the tourists sail out and back in.

3. Yachts: Masted sailboats or motorized they gleam into view and anchor for a night or two.

4. Xhiro: Each evening the xhiro begins around 19:00 (7:00PM). Donning dresses and slacks, locals and tourists walk the promenade. Like a parade they pass by our balcony. Young or old, we see friends stop to greet one another.

5. Motor scooter-ers: smoking cigarettes, holding a coffee, or talking on the cell phone these commuters zip though town. The ones with helmets are likely expats or tourists as they sit single or double on the seat. Don’t look now, there’s a family of three coming down the road as Jr. stands in the center while dad drives and mom is on the back end.

6. Delivery drivers of all sorts pass through this intersection.

7. Poverty: Daily we watched a gentleman paw through the four dumpsters on the edge of the street. He carefully extracted a crossword puzzle, a clothing item, or even a half-filled water bottle which he drinks down and tosses the empty bottle back in.

8. Package Pick-up: pulling up on top of the sidewalk or just stopping in the center of the lane, the drivers hustle out to grab a package from the shipping store or from the Neptune electronics store below our apartment.

9. Boys: One day we saw three boys ages 9-12 dig through the small rubbish bin each choosing a plastic water bottle. They walked over to the four large dumpsters, and they each peed in their bottle. Then they threw the bottles into the dumpster.

10. Parents: similar to the package pick-ups, the cars stop, and parents struggle to get their children in or out of the car and into our apartment complex where we observed a daycare.

11. Shopkeepers: workers from all the many stores near us and on the promenade use the dumpsters. Bags of trash are dumped in or next to the dumpsters. Cardboard boxes are sometimes put in whole and other times flattened. Does the size or weight of the rubbish determine if it makes it in or next to the dumpster? Not always.

12. Automobile drivers: All kinds of people are seen driving past our balcony. Some with dogs, some with children. We shake our heads most when we see an infant being held in the front seat by an adult or a toddler standing on the passenger floorboards looking out the front windshield. Seatbelts are a suggestion here.

13. Tolerant Albanians: Drivers use their horns for everything. Cops use their sirens for everything. Notifying someone parked blocking traffic, to wave at a friend, or sometimes to stop traffic so they can merely pull out. Ambulances use their air horns and sirens just to get through heavy traffic at times it seems. It is a cacophony of horns and sirens all day long. Not once have we witnessed a heated argument, let alone any real road rage while in Albania. They lay on the horn for a full 30 seconds while waving their free hand, then nod and gesture, “Just go” when the owner runs out to move a car left sitting in traffic unattended for example. It’s a known ‘hazard’ of the roadway. They deal with it without animosity.

As we sit on our balcony in Sarandë, Albania drinking our morning coffee or sipping our evening cocktail, we learn more about Albania than we ever thought we could. Yes, the rippling Ionian Sea is remarkable. Yes, boats capture our attention too. But here are 13 other things we have been able to observe from our lovely little balcony on the second story which overlooks a busy intersection of two roads, the promenade, and the beach.

We are grateful for the opportunity to watch the Albanian world go by. Through our looking glass we've been able to enjoy the safety, the tolerance, and the peaceful way tourists and Albanians co-exist.